


Everything That's Forsaken

by V_V_lala



Category: Cold Wind (Kitty and the Can Openers Song)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Leaving, implied social homophobia, love not being enough, single mother, small town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-13
Updated: 2010-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_V_lala/pseuds/V_V_lala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybelle has a son, Tommy. She also has a lover, Tommy's father, Johnny and a "forbidden" love, Sharon. There has to be a solution somewhere in there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything That's Forsaken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snow/gifts).



> I was interested in a comment you made in you letter about playing with the POVs the way they work with the lyrics -- is it a girl talking to a girl or a guy's POV -- when it comes to the lines "you know I want you girl" and "it's hard to be a man." I decided to combine both ideas, in a way. I hope you enjoy. Happy Holidays!

The Southern night is still and warm, moonlight pooling over treetops and lawns, decolorizing the flowerbeds from their vibrant colors into a faint, misty blue. The light from the house windows leaves streaks of yellow across the pebbled walkway, snaking toward the iron gate. Two beers perch on the porch railing, just barely touching and glinting in the dim light that is leaking out of the living room. Maybelle stands with her arms crossed, leaning against the railing, one hand playing with a cuff of her blouse, forehead creased in thought.

 

“What do you want from me?”

 

She looks around at the blond sat on the rocking bench beside the baby’s stroller. “I don’t want anything from you, Sharon. It’s not about what I want.” 

 

Sharon sighs and shakes her head, looking pensively down at the baby in the stroller, bundled up in a fuzzy yellow-and-green blanket. “Do you want me?” Sharon isn’t looking up, as though on purpose, to avoid meeting dark-brown eyes that flare up instantly.

 

“You know I do,” Maybelle hisses. She grabs one of the beers and squeezes it hard, fingerprints indenting into the tin sides of the can. Sharon raises her eyebrows at the other girl. They stay like that for a moment, looking at each other and Maybelle thinks the air should have ignited with tension by the time she sets the beer down and looks away, dark strands of hair falling into her eyes. But there is no tension, not a spark. That may be the hardest part.

 

Sharon stands from the rocker and lets out her hair from its bun. Blond curls tumble to frame her face. “Come on, May. This is silly. You’re the one with Johnny’s baby. Why you accusing me of everything?”

 

“If I didn’t have the baby, would that change anything?”

“Now you know I love you, but sometimes you can’t have everything that you want. I don’t think you even know what you want.”

 

Maybelle smiles bitterly. “Perhaps I don’t. But how am I supposed to know if I should be marryin’ Johnny any day now but every time he does it with me I just close my eyes and pretend? How can I know what I want if I love my baby but not his father?”

 

“Has he proposed yet?”

 

“No, but I bet his mamma will bully him into it. They can’t have a little bastard running around now can they. What would Father Laurance say?” A predatory smirk graces Maybelle’s lips. 

 

“Hush. You’re just being mean.”

 

“It’s true.” Maybelle takes a step forward and lays both hands on Sharon’s waist.

 

The blond closes her eyes as they lean in for a kiss. A cricket begins to sing somewhere in the depths of the garden. Maybelle’s hands find Sharon’s soft curls and tug at them lightly. Sharon slides both hands down Maybelle’s sides and under her blouse, rubbing in circles up her back. The brunette lets her hands fall; they slide down Sharon’s neck and find her breasts.

 

A child’s wail cuts through the still air like a siren in the middle of the night. The two girls slowly open their eyes and look at each other closely. Maybelle untangles herself and walks to the stroller, picking up the baby and bouncing him slightly in her arms. “I should go home and feed him.”

 

Sharon nods. “Yea, alright.”

 

“You’re not gonna ask me to stay are ya?” Sharon runs a hand through her hair, blinking slowly and not saying anything. Maybelle smirks knowingly. “Right, then.” She grabs the stroller with one hand, still clutching the baby to her with the other. She runs down the stairs and begins to walk to the gate, then along the empty road. It will be a good twenty-minute walk and her step is brisk. For a few moments she can feel Sharon’s eyes on her but then the feeling is gone and she hears the front door slamming shut.  

 

*

 

White, crisp linen sheets slide over two bodies tangled within their depths. They itch across hot skin and slip to the wooden floor to form spools of soft fabric that glints in the dim light of stars. Johnny does everything the Christian Boy way – in the dark, under the sheets, missionary style. He doesn’t mean to be rough about it but he doesn’t know what he’d doing half the time and he’s ashamed too. They’re not married and he tries to make up for it by abandoning condoms but she won’t let him do that. “We’ve already got one baby,” she says. Maybelle’s dark hair spills over the white pillow, a sharp contrast that stings his eyes. Hers are closed. She doesn’t like to see his eyes or the stars watching them shamelessly through the gap in the curtains. She knows her own sins well enough; there’s no reason to come face-to-face with them while she’s naked in his bed.

 

He rolls off of her in the end and lies beside her, one arm draped around her abdomen. “I want you to marry me,” he says finally.

 

“You’re so romantic.” Maybelle stares up at the ceiling.

 

“Come on, Maybelle. Who else do you have but me? I’m your baby’s father and—“

 

“His name’s Tommy.”

 

“What?” Johnny sits up and stares at her. “Who the hell is Tommy?”

 

“Your son, John.” She opens her eyes and looks up at him steadily, the corners of her mouth curling in a mocking smirk. “I named him Thomas after his granddaddy. Do you mind?”

 

Johnny stares at her for a moment, then shakes his head, the tenseness draining from his shoulders. “No. I don’t mind. I just thought…” He shrugs and gets off the bed, picking up one of the fallen sheets as he goes and wrapping it around his waist. He pushes open one of the windows and lights up a cigarette.

 

“You thought I had another lover?” He doesn’t look back at her, just shrugs and continues to smoke, releasing grayish-white puffs into the air. The smell of smoke and the thick, cloyingly sweet scent of flowers intermix, creating a dizzying, nauseating odor. “Why are you marryin’ me? You don’t love me anymore.”

 

“It’s hard to love someone who’s not all there.”

 

Maybelle sits up but doesn’t get off the bed. She reaches over and picks up the second sheet, pulling it over herself and up to her chin. “You callin’ me crazy, John?”

 

“No, I’m just sayin’ that you use to be somethin’ else back at school. Before you met that girl Shanon. I don’t even wanna know what the two of you do when you’re out and alone. I’ve heard things though.”

 

“Well, if you’re such a Mr. Right, why didn’t you ask me to marry you when you first fucked me?” He still won’t meet her eyes. Maybelle isn’t smirking anymore but watching his back intently. “Hard to be a man when there’s blood on the sheets aint it, Johnny-boy?”

 

“Shut up,” he sneers. “I didn’t know you were a virgin.”

 

“As though that would changed anything. But it’s just so like you to assume the worst of me. Why you with me, John? Why should I stay with ya and marry ya?”

 

“Because no one else decent will have ya. Not with that baby.”

 

“I think you’re wrong. I know someone who loves me. Baby or no baby.” She’s thinking of Sharon and wondering if she really means what she says or it she’s lying to herself.

 

“Sometimes love isn’t enough.” Maybelle winces. “Sometimes it’s not everything.” Johnny turns to look at her. “We got a baby, Maybelle. That’s a family. God—“

 

“No, John. I got a baby. You… you got your mamma and daddy’s words stuck in your head.” She slips out of the bed and pulls on her sundress, the straps making small, poignant, snapping sounds against her shoulders. “And don’t you talk to me about God; I went to church too. I know everything you do so just don’t.” 

*

 

The train station is nearly empty. An old man in an old hat stands a few feet away, an old woman holds the hand of a lanky preteen girl who stares morosely at the train tracks, but otherwise the place it deserted. Somewhere in the distance a dog barks and a young man’s voice calls out, “Sit, Pettsy! Down girl! Down, damn it.” Maybelle clutches the handle of her suitcase and two tickets with one hand while cradling a whimpering Tommy against her chest with the other. The train going North is late. She’s not sure if that’s a sign and she’s not sure that things will work out even if it’s not but she has to try. She’d stayed so long in her little Southern town where everyone knew everyone that she’d forgotten there was a whole world out there. She is trying to remember that now as she stands on the verge of the biggest goodbye of her life.

 

Because sometimes love isn’t enough.


End file.
